


the Aftermath is Secondary

by Saul



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Damen's a free spirit, Gratuitous Charls, Laurent's a lil more broke, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-01 05:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6502819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dressed in unremarkable clothing, his sleek, sharp wings covered with unadorned black, Laurent stood out as a point of royal beauty wrapped in rags. If Damen hadn’t spent days by his side, he might not have recognized him.</p><p>Across the tavern, Laurent’s gaze found him and notably widened.</p><p>“Come now, Damen, what could possibly-- oh, who’s <i>that?</i> Do you know him? You sly dog, you should have said you’d been here before.” This from Charls, who brightened immensely when the blond began to pick his way to their table. Doubtlessly he thought he was about to witness a reunion between two pining lovers. Damen didn't even know where to start with how wrong that thought was.</p><p>( "what would have happened if Damen escaped from the palace?" with a side of free flying. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. at first

**Author's Note:**

> hooooo well I typed this out on a whim, because damn if wing-related anythings aren't my biggest weakness. 
> 
> it's a full canon divergence AU with the idea that Damen's escape into the night during the first book went successfully. which, wowie boy oh boy, means these two are very much not their Kings Rising counterparts. they've got a lot of growing to do, and the changes to the storyline have also set them on alternate developmental tracks (I'm a firm believer that the two one hundred percent needed to learn from each other to succeed). nonetheless, I hope they remain true to their cores!

That he couldn't fly struck him as he left a flushed, drugged prince alone after a thwarted assassination. Poised atop the palace’s tiled outer wall, great wings stretched to their fullest, he decided he had a shot at gliding even with clipped feathers, and, the pressures of the coming dawn over him, leapt for freedom. 

Climbing the walls strained at woefully underused muscles, but determination more than made up for it. No amount of will-power would keep him aloft: he curved his wings for a slow descent, felt the wind catch, and felt it desert him, the very breath knocked from his lungs at the pain ricocheting from flight tip to toes. Like some sort of adolescent, he floundered mid-air, twisted and cursed and landed hard on a shoulder thirty feet of open space later. It was disgraceful. He’d glided better before he'd known how to ride a horse. 

_Grace was the least of his problems_ , though it sped up his heart worse than running into a blurry-eyed Nicaise. It was _temporary_ , while the sleeping state of Arles was not.

Grounded, he crept along alleyways and under pillared mansions, an eye kept to the sky for the inevitable patrols. They would search on horse and on wing, but the latter always appeared before the former. Eventually the city lowered itself, the poor crowded into every space that could be filled - a warning bell cut through the quiet of the slowly waking populous, its cacophany spread like baying hounds from tower to tower - and, eventually, a door opened directly above him, its stairs rickety and rotten. Damen recognized the figure that stepped out even from twenty feet down. 

Govart looked to the sky with the bemusement of a man hurried on his way. As Damen froze under the stairs’ planks (his eyes flitted to the not-entirely-discrete brothel’s signage), he turned back to speak to a -- woman, it seemed. They exchanged words for too long. Damen dropped his eyes lest the white catch in the yellowed lighting. He waited. He waited. The stairs creaked under Govart’s foot. They continued to speak. He waited. He waited. He--

The stairs creaked again, but rather than take the low road, Govart flung himself into the sky. And her really had to _fling_ himself: his expansive wings labored to keep him upright, and, as Damen watched, he very nearly failed to keep himself steady. His foot clipped a roof’s tile as he ascended, the responding curse could be heard all the way from the ground.

All around, bells continued ringing. The patrols swooped overhead while hooves clattered by on misshapen cobblestone. 

Tucked into the shadows, Damianos continued home.

 

 

Finding clothes proved easy. The farther from the palace he walked, the more clothes lines there were. Though he’d thought them needless - and still did - it proved fortunate that Veretian clothing included covers for the back of a person’s wings, as he overheard more than a few describe the ‘runaway slave’ from the palace as ‘sporting large, brown, broken-backed wings.’ They also described him as barbaric, highly volatile, and wickedly cruel, as he apparently had a hand in the assassination attempt on the prince, which was at once both absurd and infuriating. When he ditched the raggedy training leathers for non-descriptive beige that sported a little less lace than normal, it was with wry humor that he admitted unlacing the prince’s jacket all those days ago came in use. What happened _after_ the baths-- ah, now there was the kicker. 

Without the doctor’s salve, the torn skin along his back and wings stiffened and itched. After two days of fitful sleeping in cramped spaces and forced walking, the tightness upgraded to a constant throb. His right wing refused to stretch its full expanse, and his left trembled terribly while he gritted his teeth. Under the early morning sun on the third day when he twisted and pulled to check the damage, he found his coverts in such disarray as to be mortifying. Worked into a painful red, the exposed skin under broken feathers looked angry and inflamed. By the week’s end, feathers began to fall in clumps, baring the meshy, pulpy flesh underneath to the world. The only saving grace was that it didn't bleed, and so he could keep it covered without too many questions. To add insult to injury, he found if he wanted to sleep, he would not be able to do so on his side. 

Even as his flight feathers grew back - the obvious mark of slavery that most Veretian peoples were thankfully ignorant to slowly diminishing - it rapidly became clear flight was not a quick option. He still tried every night to stretch his sore ligaments, and every third day (with grim determination, every reiteration harder than the last) tried a simple glide over a dip in the road or from one ladder to another. What he learned was this: failure bit worse than the pain.

Back on the second day after escaping the palace, his stomach in knots but head not yet swimming, he sat himself on a fallen tree and sorted out what he needed to reach Akielos. 

(What he would do once there was something to contemplate once he made it out of Arles’ immediate reach). 

He couldn’t ignore the new weakness forever, though a childishly stubborn part of him wanted to. Harder than finding clothes was finding food, and harder than finding food was finding a horse. 

It shouldn’t have _felt_ shameful to realize, but pick-pocketing had never been his strong suit. That was to say: he’d never, ever, ever done so, and while the principles weren’t difficult to understand, the technique evidently needed did not come to him naturally. His plan to find a blacksmith to take the gold off his wrists and neck backfired when the palace’s bounty for him spread faster than wildfire across the city. The price wasn’t worth even one golden cuff, but combined with the claims of his hand in the assassination attempt, the one blacksmith he’d been foolish enough to approach made it clear he’d sooner take a hammer to Damen’s head than help him. And that blacksmith had been a rougher older man with no apprentices to speak of on Arles’ outskirts, his wares dented and low quality.

Grudgingly, Damen admitted the loyalty to their heir was admirable, naive as it was. 

So. He stole where he could. His stomach didn’t allow him to be above it.

He got better at pick-pocketing. Moreover, he bettered himself at noting when someone wasn’t around, and taking without hesitation.

What he needed most to find was a sturdy horse to speed his journey, but the beasts numbered few outside of farming towns, and then were treated as preciously as gold. Few people could fly themselves from one town to another, but few _needed_ to, and of the merchants who did, oxen suited their needs much better. The ones with horses were the mercenaries riding with the merchants, and while he imagined himself a decent candidate for offering protection, he couldn’t risk it with the word of his escape on everyone’s lips (for the same reason, he avoided asking anything directly about Akielos, no matter how much his heart yearned to hear news; he already looked the part, he didn’t need to act it, too). He already sported enough bruises for the times someone did put two and two together about the dark skinned, close-winged man in the back of the tavern.

And then, suddenly, two weeks later and three increasingly small villages away from Arles: he wasn’t the talk of the town. 

The people of Calais were already on the fringe of Arles’ rumor mill. Most of them farmers, their claim to fame were their excellent salted peanuts, old Josie’s flower arrangements, and an incredible harvest festival in four months’ time. Damen allowed himself a break and scrounged up enough coin for a room at the two bedroomed inn, though the landlady informed him sternly that he’d only be allowed to rent the room if he came and left in the twilight hours. Her neighbors couldn’t know she hosted Akielons, even if she was sorry, dear, she really was, she could tell by his manner that he was no Akielon, but he sure looked the part. Tired of sleeping without four walls and a roof, Damen weathered her so-called well intentioned comments and followed her instructions. While scrubbing grime off in the wooden tub and carefully straightening rough-edged feathers with the chastising _why did you wait so long!_ voice of his old friend in his mind, the musing gossip of two passing villagers floated its way through his open window and into his awareness.

_I hear the prince is marching south with an army._

_No! For war?_

_No, no. Gods, no. Well, not yet._

_Is it about that attack? I heard Akielons snuck into the palace with poisoned daggers. They were let in by a servant-- or was he a pet? Why in the world would anyone take on an Akielon as a pet? The attack was bound to happen with something like that hanging around._

_Isn’t that the truth!_

_Really now. The prince should march for war, if you ask me._

_I admire his cool head… hasn’t been long since… if… war..._

Their voices grew smaller and smaller until they faded completely.

Damen unclenched his hand from the tub’s edge, rose from the cooled water, and shook out his left wing, the ragged tip brushing the narrow room’s wall. After soaking in lukewarm water for an hour, his right at last extended, though it left him gasping in odd, unsettling exertion.

That night, all he could think was: he had to reach Akielos before Laurent.

The days of traveling by foot were over. He needed a horse. More than that, he needed passage.

 

 

A merchant’s caravan passed through Calais the next morn. Two weeks out from his escape, and caution grated. He’d waited in the palace’s gilded cage long enough -- when the merchant came in for a bite, talking loudly with a friend about the long trek ahead to the border, he approached the grey haired, round-winged man with a proposition (though he needed to steady himself before, and didn’t fancy himself all too convincing during, the intentional deception a weird, awkward dance he just barely began to learn--- it made him think Arles left a part on him, and he despised that more than anything). He’d noticed the man’s guard looked thin. The merchant assured him that though he looked to be a big, impressive fellow, the numbers were ones he’d used before, and they were fine, especially for a cloth caravan. He crossed his arms to broaden his shoulders, cocked his head, looked to the side, and mused absently if beating his hired best in a duel wouldn’t convince the the merchant to consider taking him on.

The man flustered at this, but after three mugs of mulled wine - which was when Damen approached - the proposition seemed like a fair one, and a chance for his best to feel better about his sword-work, besides. Damen considered it a blessing he’d taken a bath the night before.

Damen apologized for not having his own sword. The mercenary laughed and said he’d give Damen his sword and horse if he won unarmed. It was very Veretian of him, which was to say it was petty and insulting to not even be offered a secondary blade. 

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. It’d never been a fair fight, anyway.

By the end of the day, Damen had a horse, a sword, and honest work to see him home.

That night, stretched out on his stomach next to bolts of brightly colored fabric on a bumpy wagon, he pinched the bridge of his nose _hard._

The vice on his heart felt like relief. The chill in his lungs tasted like freedom.

He wondered about Laurent for the first time since leaving. He wondered what sort of leader the sheltered prince was: if he could hold his own in a duel, let alone on a battlefield. His men adored him in the palace. Would they adore him on a long march? Would he follow his uncle’s advice, whatever that advice might be? Would he try to follow in his brother’s footsteps? The hardened lords at their countries’ edges would not be impressed by a sharp tongue and cold eyes-- but then the magic he worked with Prince Torveld came to mind, and Damen had to admit that maybe the lords would be swayed.

Perhaps they would meet again at the border. Damen hoped, _prayed_ , that it wouldn’t be as two commanders in the midst of a war. 

 

 

They made excellent time down the green expanse of Vere’s interior. Sat atop a chestnut mare with more than a few nicks in her side, Damen found himself with enough time to appreciate the country’s lush forests and creeping creeks. The other mercenaries took a shine to him eventually, though it took a barrel of the red-haired Erec’s wine to reach that camaraderie.

As for his employer, Charls was a fair but business-minded man.

On the sole occasion a highway-man did attempt to raid their party and Damen rounded up two spooked oxen and led them back almost by their horns, he returned to find the merchant eyeing him with a mix of pity and confusion. 

Made uneasy after an hour of such treatment - none of his lacings had come undone during the skirmish, there was no way the man could have seen the gold under his sleeves and collar - Damen at last turned toward him and asked, blunt as a hammer, “What is it?” 

Charls started, his hand jumping to rub at his chin. “Oh, well, my boy, it’s nothing, really, it’s fine. I just…”

Damen waited, his good humor dried up from two rough weeks alone on the road and the possibility he might find himself there again. Charls spread his hands to his sides, and then gestured vaguely at Damen’s _person,_ obviously struggling for words.

“... I hadn’t known you, er. That is to say. You’re such a big fellow, and you’ve such a nice way around a fight, I’d thought maybe you used to be a soldier for Prince Auguste, despite your being Akielon by blood. It’s only - please don’t take this the wrong way, my friend - I had noticed you were previously clipped, but I hadn’t realized you were grounded.”

Oh.

Wings folded close, Damen licked his lips and shifted his weight. He hadn’t thought himself as-- he wasn’t-- 

“I’m not grounded,” he said, though he could tell by the merchant’s pinched expression that Charls doubted him. Now it was time for him to struggle for the right words, the right story. Being flogged for the worst move on the wrong Prince was not what Charls needed to hear. “Not always, that is. Obviously, right now... I -- suffered an incident a few months ago. They’ll heal.”

“Oh.” The merchant said. Paused. Blinked. Coughed, and shook his head as well as his wings, the grey-brown of his feathers ruffling and settling. Most likely, his mind filled in the reason for his clipping as part of _the incident_ ; this was fine. Let him think he’d been mugged, or ridiculed, or whatever it was in the merchant’s head. “That’s, ah, that’s good to hear! You’ve really quite marvelous feathers. It’d be a shame if you never put them to use.”

Oxen once more fastened under the yoke and all materials accounted for, they continued on their journey southward. 

That night as the oxen slept and he took watch, he unclipped the coverings, loosened the lacing holding his jacket closed at the join of wing and back, dug his fingers into a low branch, and stretched both appendages as far as they would go before painstakingly slowly running through the oldest, easiest exercises he remembered. The skin pulled, the muscles bunched tight, the scarred tissue on fire - at last, panting, he dropped from his stance and curved a wing forward to pat down the back, convinced he would find them bleeding anew.

He ended up with one hand across his face and the other tucked into his armpit, shoulders and wings both hunched forward. His _back_ was tight to the point of note during combat, but ultimately ignorable. This… was not.

He’d thought it a temporary situation. 

He’d neglected the exercises.

_It was a temporary situation._

That night, he set his mind to beginning anew. By the time Akielos was in sight, _he would fly._

 

 

Though it wasn’t anything like their first stop along the way south, the sizable town they resupplied and rested in would always have itself engraved in Damen’s mind. This would remain true until the day he died, despite the fact he had no idea what the town was called.

He ventured into the local tavern with Charls and his bookkeep: a shabbily decent establishment with more than one room (that only Charls would occupy, not that this was much worth commenting on), the mead came warm and the meat dishes weren’t half bad. It was one of the merchant’s favorite taverns, he said with a toast of warm cider - he’d stopped by every time he passed through for nearly a decade. Charls, his bookkeep, and Damen spent the better part of the evening there, the conversation easy and atmosphere relaxed. The town had no reason to worry about politics, whether it be a marching prince or runaway slave. They were over half-way to the border, and the spices the cook offered reflected that. It was almost nostalgic, though as far as his employer knew, he was a second generation immigrant and held only the loosest connection with Akielos.

An old man played cards by the hearth, his woolen cap even older than him. A few people moved in and out of the tavern; a short woman came and went without buying a single thing, while a tall, bearded man disappeared upstairs without looking anyone in the eye. As the light outside faded completely, a twig-armed boy appeared at their table, fluttering his eyelashes at Charls and twirling a piece of his curly brown hair around a finger, his off-white wing tips brushing gently against the bookkeep’s calves. Both cloth vendors cleared their throat awkwardly and made uninterested small talk, though Damen noted the bookkeep’s eyes strayed to follow the boy’s figure when he finally left their table. When the man caught Damen’s amused smirk, he turned pink and hastily ordered another drink. Charls tittered in good humor at him and launched into a childhood story of a woman he’d once thought he’d wanted to wed.

This scene was not why the town would always be in Damen’s mind.

The reason was, as had become the norm for memorable occasions within the last half-year, blond, blue eyed, and _not supposed to be here._

“If it hadn’t been for that pig, I would be posing for a couple’s portrait even now--- Damen? … Damen? Is something wrong?”

The merchant glanced over his shoulder in a manner he might have thought subtle. Damen’s hand snapped out without thought to snag his wrist. A sharp movement, it made him jump, his spine snapped straight. 

The blond, blue-eyed anomaly who should have been leading his army and not walking alone around a backwater town scanned the tables with disinterest. Dressed in unremarkable clothing, his sleek, sharp wings covered with unadorned black, his mannerisms aloof, he stood out as a point of royal beauty wrapped in rags. If Damen hadn’t spent days by his side, he might not have recognized him, though he was sure his head would have turned.

Charls whispered, “Should I be ducking under the table?”

Damen shook his head at the same time as Laurent’s gaze found him. Even across the dim room, he saw how blue widened, shoulders straightened and the corners of a delicate mouth tightened. 

“Surely no one would try to rob _here_ ,” exclaimed the bookkeep. Charls nodded agreement. Over their heads, Damen couldn’t look away. It seemed like the Veretian prince felt the same way, though probably for a reason unrelated to a good five weeks’ worry of being dragged back to a locked golden room. 

“Come now, Damen, what could possibly-- oh, who’s _that?_ Do you know him? You sly dog, you should have said you’ve been here before.” This from Charls, who chose to disregard his hand and turn again to look. 

The bookkeep blinked a slow, red-eyed blink and raised his eyebrows high. “He’s coming this way.”

He was.

Damen contemplated excusing himself and taking the confrontation outside, if not heading it off before it started. He discarded the idea after admitting it would take magic he did not possess to head off Prince Laurent. He remembered that much from his time in the palace.

“Gentlemen.” The crowned prince of Vere had the incredible ability to smile without actually smiling. It was how the expression made its recipient feel as if they held the man’s entire attention-- first aimed at Charls, then the bookkeep, and finally, Damen. Laurent’s poker face remained a source of wonder even while Damen braced himself for vehement denial. He had weeks of rapport with these men. A clever tongue would not undo trust so easily.

Or so he hoped, while he felt his own expression (compared to his employers, Laurent’s entrance sobered him up right fast) pinch. 

“Hello,” piped the amicable Charls after a wondering glance between his hired guard and this new-comer. “Forgive me. Do you two know each other?”

“It’s been some time,” Laurent replied, smooth as a fox, “but yes, I’d say we do.”

“He doesn’t live around here,” Damen said in a tone he hoped viciously didn’t sound blurted. It came off too sharp in his mind to tell. “He travels, much like me. Our paths have crossed along the way - not for long, of course.”

“You know how it goes,” the prince said with that not-smile and a touch of _what can you do?_ melancholy. Charls and the bookkeep nodded in synchronized sympathy, the two relaxing as the conversation proceeded how they expected it to. Damen could see the idea of him and Laurent being off-on lovers form in their mind. It was as fascinating as it was unnerving.

“In fact,” continued Laurent as he leaned subtly forward, hand flattened on the table. “Would you mind if I stole him away for a bit? It’s been so long - I’d love to catch up.”

Damen thought that was laying it on a little thick. 

“Oh!” Charls, damn him, chucked before Damen could reasonably explain why he’d rather not. “Certainly! Damen, don’t wait up for us -- go, enjoy yourself. We won’t be leaving until the day after tomorrow, anyway.”

“Is that so?” Murmured Laurent, while Damen didn’t hide his grimace. “Thank you. I’ll be right over there whenever you’re ready, Damen. I wouldn’t want you to feel _rushed_.”

The bookkeep cleared his throat after the blonde stepped away, though Damen noted unhappily that his eyes also strayed to follow Laurent’s retreat, and the look the man turned toward him had a new, jealous glint. “Go on, Damen. You look like a hare facing down a hound - don’t be so nervous. He’s obviously missed you.”

He couldn’t resist the dark mumble of, “I’m sure he has,” as he pushed himself up and checked his sleeves for any hint of gold. This was the first town they’d stopped at for longer than an afternoon with a proper blacksmith. Of course Laurent would run into him here. Of course.

Charls clapped him on his arm as he excused himself from them. Laurent had settled himself next to the hearth, not far from the old man playing chess against himself. Damen contemplated his choices, gave himself more time by taking a trip to the bar, and finally ventured over with two mugs of the cheapest wines. It was what he could afford on his pittance. The irony was not lost on him.

Laurent accepted the mug with a gracious look, leaning close and murmuring in a voice pitched just for them, “Do you enjoy making them think they can trust you?”

Damen handed him his mug and made a point to sit on the opposite side of the table and take his time in getting comfortable, his wings fitted neatly atop the chair’s back rest. Weeks of freedom - weeks without these ridiculous mind games - and he would _not_ be dragged back down so easily. 

Any earlier thoughts he might have had of wanting to meet the enigmatic prince again went down the drain as the blond’s eyes flashed in the hearth’s light and he pressed forward with, “You left at the perfect time. My uncle plans to incite war with the bastard King in the south.”

Though his blood rose, a niggling thought gave him pause. 

“Surely you’ve heard that I’ve been sent to the borders with an army. Do you think Akielos will stand a chance in its current state?”

Damen frowned.

Laurent’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, his wings shifted minutely - they rose and fell, a startling tell Damen would never have expected from the ever-controlled Veretian prince.

“They think we’re friends.” This spoken with that not-smile, which Damen now saw was as good as bared teeth. “You wouldn’t want to shatter that happy delusion of theirs, would you.”

“Why are you here?” He at last asked, tone cool and maybe a bit confused. Because that was the root of it, wasn’t it - the Laurent in his memory would never speak so fast and so obviously, and most importantly, he would never go to a shabby tavern in the middle of nowhere without a reason. It already exhausted Damen to think like this again, but as he thought it, he knew it was true. Laurent’s mouth shut, which just confirmed it.

Unfortunately, the prince didn’t stay quiet for long.

“It’s just as well we meet here.” His hand atop the table was in a loose curl, though his eyes lose none of their tension. Damen had the absurd thought of whether or not they ever did, these days. And then he said: “I’ve a room upstairs. Come with me.” And Damen stared, because _what._

“... I’m no longer your slave, Laurent.” He said, for lack of anything better and also to make that clear, because apparently ‘I’m leaving’ hadn’t communicated his point all those weeks ag--

“You’re still wearing the cuffs.” He said it like a statement - this time, Damen’s mouth snapped shut. Something shifted in the prince’s expression, and the Akielon thought, _shit._ “It wouldn’t be hard to expose you right now, and then you would definitely be a slave again. One despised by his so-called friends, nonetheless.” A muscle along the man’s jawline jumped as he paused, the hand on the table tapping twice. Damen’s eyes jumped from his fingers back to his face. “Come with me upstairs.”

 _No_ , he wanted to say. But then the prince stood, his body loose and wings angled _just-so_ as he swept by. A glance toward his employers proved Charls and the bookkeep had been watching: they gave him a thumbs up and _go get him!_ smile.

Still, there was nothing that forced him to follow. He could walk out of the tavern, collect his horse, and be on his way before Charls or Laurent knew any better. 

He took a brief second to scrub his face, gulp a swallow of the awful wine (Laurent’s went untouched, he noted), and follow him up the stairs.

 

 

“Are you waiting for an invitation? Fly!”

“We should take the streets - they’re expecting you to be airborne.” 

“And you know what they’re thinking?”

“I’ve escaped before, haven’t I?”

The bearded man they met took Laurent’s wrapped bag with utmost gratitude, and gave Damen an odd look before he left. Not long after, a commotion began in the tavern below, and the doors next door rattled as an airborne authority came close to knocking it down. They’d shared a look of mutual entrapment. Then Laurent had said, “At this point, you’re my accomplice,” and, “Follow me.”

Three rooftops and a flurry of angry guards later - one of which Damen caught in the chin with his fist, another Laurent struck in the gut with a flowerpot - and they were still running. The figures’ numbers remained consistent at six, at least, though their persistence made them a threat of twelve. 

At the moment they’d lost them; Damen rounded them back to the tavern to get his horse, zig-zagging through the alleyways with only the barest sense of direction. At his side but mostly a step ahead, Laurent kept a grim face, taking each turn as if it would be their last, and he was fully prepared to drag everyone around him down with him. Damen recommended they split to divide their followers, but the blond simply gave him an unimpressed, vicious look and simpered in the temporary refuge of a darkened alcove, “And if it turns into six against one? No, I’d rather not.”

 _Ah._ That explained that, then. He was hired muscle.

It was fine. He swung himself onto his mare, looked to the direction Laurent pointed - 

“Where’s your horse?”

“Not here.”

\- And spurred her into tearing down the streets. He looked back only once, and found Laurent hot on his tail, the white tips and stripes of his sleek feathers glowing under the moon’s light. 

He rode farther from the town than most could have kept up with by wing, steadying his mare at steady gallop from the village’s farmland to a light forest. Unsurprisingly surprising, Laurent didn’t break or fall behind for one second. It was only once they passed into denser trees that he stopped -- and when he did, he dipped close to Damen’s mare, thereby spooking her into an abrupt stop and upset rearing. It took all of his attention to keep from falling off as well as keep her from _dashing_ off. By the time she’d settled down and he could dismount without fear of being bitten or kicked, Laurent had his wings tucked back under their covers and looked only slightly winded. Damen couldn’t help but feel it was intentional.

Looking disbelievingly at the figure leaning casually against a tree, pure anger at last made itself known. He’d been on the _right path_ to his _rightful place_ , striving to keep their kingdoms from _war_ , and here Laurent came to derail him as surely as if he owned him, as selfish as Damen could ever remember.

“ _Where_ ,” Damen demanded, his Veretian crackling under barely restrained fury, his knuckles white around his horse’s reins, “is your army?”

Why was he here alone? What was the meaning of-- _any of this?_

Laurent considered him straight-on, his nonchalance ruined by the one stray hair that escaped from being tucked behind his ear. 

Finally, the man’s mouth thinned. 

“From here? About a week’s worth of travel by horse. Twelve days by wing.”

Damen drew himself back. At his side, his mare shuffled uneasily, her nostrils flared. The statement struck him as absurd. 

He said as much. “You left your men that far away?”

“The accommodations in a castle, even a very old one, are much better than those of the road. The men are happier.”

“You’re their commander.” He honestly didn’t understand. Perhaps both of their brains were scrambled from the midnight dash. “You’re meant to lead them. You can’t lead them from a week and a half away.”

Laurent didn’t budge, but his words dropped like stones in a still pond all the same. It wasn’t hard to understand the discomfort - and maybe disgust - under the blond’s own skin. “I won’t take that from the man who _ran away._ ”

Silence.

Blowing out another breath, Damen shook his head and turned away.

“Where are you going?” Laurent asked as he swung himself back into his saddle, the blond’s eyes pinned to him.

“Back to where I belong.” He looked as though he had something to say about that-- Damen cut him off. “I won’t play your ridiculous games. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you want me around.”

 _That_ shut him up. 

Nudging his mare around, he picked his way out of the forest and didn’t once look back.

 

 

Fortunately, his Veretian company did little more than rib and chuckle at him for his ‘wild night,’ a point which slid smoothly into sympathetic apology for ‘taking him away from his gorgeous lover’ as they finished resupplying the wagons and cleaning the animals. The bookkeep groused about the sudden appearance of bandits in a patrol’s guise ruining his night at the tavern, but as was his usual, he didn’t require a reply from Damen. 

He went to the town’s blacksmith, also. The man’s eyes glittered at the gold. If Damen returned in three days, he would have the tools ready for the delicate work required around his neck. The wrist cuffs were no trouble. Damen spent a moment gazing at the metal warm around his wrists, and agreed to the removal of at least two of his bindings. The blacksmith, perhaps sensing desperation, demanded one as payment. Again, Damen agreed. 

The collar remained, but his arms-- he _knew_ gold didn't weigh much at all, but it felt as if he could lift an ox, if need be. He spent a while in the night simply rubbing his wrists, a smile on his face. 

By the morning of their leaving, he felt satisfied he wouldn’t meet Laurent again until they stood as equals across a negotiation table. Although if the prince continued abandoning his men for secret rendezvous with bearded messengers, perhaps he’d instead face the man’s uncle. From his spot atop his mare, hiding a yawn from two nights of bad sleep, he uncharitably thought it wouldn’t be so bad a trade. Later he’d recall the Regent’s offer to get him to sleep with his nephew and deliberate on whether or not he really would mind, but for right then, the older man seemed a far better partner in trade.

Thinking so of course meant when he moved forward to inform Charls of their completed preparations, he found his employer engaged happily with a straight-backed, sleek winged blond.

Damen pulled his horse to a sharp halt. Laurent turned his head to gaze at him while Charls turned fully and exclaimed that he hadn’t known Damen’s friend was an aspiring tradesman! Or that he spoke Patran, the area that Charls sorely lacked! And how lucky that there was room for another apprentice in their merry band!

“I’m always happy to help a friend of a friend,” he said empathetically. Laurent thanked him with enough gratitude to be humble and enough poise to be dignified.

Somehow, he’d scrounged up enough paper, ink and travel clothes to look the part of a new, bright-eyed tradesman. These items were placed with the others’, carried and packed by Damen due to a quick, up-down exchange between the merchant and liar that somehow landed him as Laurent’s chief friend.

“What made you interested in cloth?” Charls asked him while Damen finished re-latching the wagon’s tarp.

“Oh, I’ve always had an interest in weaving. It’s truly an art.”

He sounded perfectly naive. 

Sensing there was nothing he could do to stop this progress, Damen cited checking n the others, and excused himself. Charls waved him off and took Laurent by the elbow to steer him toward the front of the caravan, the pair appearing as nothing less than good, fast friends.

So, no. Damen would never forget the town they left with one additional person added to their party. He made a mental note never to return -- it was obviously a place of ill omen.

Traveling proceeded much slower, or perhaps that was due in part to Damen’s fouled mood. Fortunately, he didn’t have to interact with Laurent on the road, and the blond seemed as happy to ignore him as Damen was; unfortunately, meals were taken as a company, and while the prince wooed his new travel companions, the conversation for a time focused on this newcomer. After weeks on the road with each other, it was a natural curiousity, and one Laurent did nothing to dissuade. Notably, he stuck close to the merchant’s side in no small part due to the stiff-backed, almost-uncertainty-if-this-weren’t-Laurent-of-Vere look that always came over his face at the mercenaries’ rough, blunt informality. Or so Damen gathered, anyway - he engaged Laurent at the bare minimum, and only when others watched. When it reached the point that Erec asked him if the two were estranged lovers or Laurent was trying to pressure him to take him back by joining their group, Damen grudgingly admitted he had to watch his behaviour lest someone take a concern to Laurent.

Rather: first he barked a surprised laugh at Erec, vehemently denied their being lovers (this was met with doubt), and _then_ he resolved to change his behaviour.

Just.

Not immediately.

He couldn’t figure out why the prince didn’t expose him. He had cuffs to prove his time as a slave, and Charls had enough deals with Akielos to put the clipped wings he’d arrived with together to grasp a fuller picture. On the other hand, Damen had-- what? His own word that they’d been joined by the _Crown Prince_ , of whom, as everyone knew, was marching south with an army. There was no reason to keep Damen’s secret when Laurent could rid himself of the Akielon altogether, which had always seemed - as his back attested - a low key objective.

Behind that worry simmered curiousity on why Laurent wasn’t with his men; why Laurent headed south at all when he was alone; and, on if that bearded man wasn’t the scout for some larger army, and the blond planned to join his forces in secret, evading the high profile march in favor of some sort of cloak-and-dagger routine. But armies were too large to do such a thing, and even someone who enjoyed back alley dealing as much as Laurent had to know a commander needed to be with his people. It didn’t make any sense. It made his wings itch to try to puzzle it out, his thoughts turning in a never-ending circle that reminded him dizzily of too many hours spent chained and alone.

So he continued avoiding Laurent, and Laurent continued allowing him to.

They passed a trading post and gained two new chains of wagons belonging to Charls’ friends. This made their progress even slower, which in turn fouled Damen’s mood further, and made him push off behaving better toward Laurent even more. They were in a happy limbo, he thought to himself. Laurent didn’t look at him. He didn’t look at Laurent. It worked well. Even the bookkeep realized the two weren’t friends, but they respected him enough (- or learned his stubbornness in talking about himself, a closed lip habit he’d had since the beginning, to know better than to try -) not to pry.

The new merchants meant Charls stayed up later into the night drinking with his friends. On a particularly warm night, a summer breeze kept the humidity at bay and Damen stretched himself out on his pallet, content that it wasn’t his turn for watch and that the newcomer’s sellswords weren’t plotting anything devious against their employers. The exercises he’d diligently stuck to meant he could once more sleep on his side, one wing tucked under his chin and the other laid out behind him. Cramped though the quarters were, and even if sleeping on his arm turned it numb, it was comfortable enough. Drifting off, he didn’t register another figure entering the wagon until that person spoke up.

“Sleeping in a laced jacket will cut the circulation to your hands.” 

Damen’s eye cracked open, wing instinctively raising to cover his head. Then he blinked at his own soft feathers, muzzily connected voice to face, and peeked over the top of one tan-capped wing. 

“But you must know that - you’ve been doing this for a while. There _are_ high-necked sleeping shirts you could use.”

“What?” Was at last his reply, his pins-and-needles (it had to be from sleeping on his side!) hand pressed into the floor to lever him up. “Laurent?”

“Obviously.” The blond eyed him with the wary consideration a man gave a murky puddle that covered his path, his expression otherwise placidly emotionless. “Don’t worry - I’m not here to make nice. Charls and his friend have… appropriated my sleeping cot for their reunion.”

Damen stared at him. Laurent stared back.

Then it clicked.

“You’ve been relocated.”

Chin raised an inch, Laurent intoned, “It appears difficult given your immeasurable bulk, but the sooner you move over, the sooner we can return to pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

A slow glance around proved just how little space there already was, even if he were to shift his cot and sleep as if in a coffin. Movement drew his gaze back: Laurent’s wings again opened and resettled, fast but telling, against his back, though he looked down at the Akielon as if he had all the time in the world. If he were a lesser man, Damen thought his foot would tap impatiently against the floor. 

Contemplating this, as well as the advantages and disadvantages to arguing that there had to be room in other wagons, Damen exhaled a sigh and scooted over.

“Set the horizontal bolts against the front, vertically. So long as we aren’t moving, they shouldn’t fall over, and-- we’ll have more space.” Hand waved in the cloth stacks’ direction, he mentally wrote it off as Laurent’s problem and laid back down on his side, wings closed tight to his back. At first there was only silence. Then, finally: the quiet sounds of bolts being relocated and a cot laid out, whereupon Damen assumed the prince laid down and fell asleep. He didn’t check, and before long, even with Laurent at his uncovered back, he fell asleep.

When he woke, Laurent was gone and the bolts were back in place. If a rolled up palet hadn’t been left at the foot of the wagonbed, Damen would’ve thought he dreamt the whole thing.

Despairingly, the sleeping arrangement remained the same for the next few days. Every night they moved the bolts - if Damen arrived first, which he usually did, he took it upon himself to move them for simplicity’s sake - and every morning he woke to an empty, tidy wagon. Outside of their makeshift bedroom, their interactions became limited - a nod here, a greeting there, the occasional question and answer - and their silences grew close to _companionable_ , which was boggling in itself when Damen took the time to realize it. 

“Why, you and Jord,” because that was the name Laurent chose for whatever godforsaken reason - he didn’t look anything like a Jord -, “seem to have grown closer. That’s good. I was afraid you’d spend our whole trip tip-toeing around each other.” 

That was Charls’ polite comment, complete with a knowing smile.

Damn wondered if maybe that had been his plan all along with the re-arrangement in sleeping quarters, but then he saw how close Charls leaned to his friend, and how his friend draped his long, blue-edged wing around Charls, and he decided it was probably nothing more than a side perk.

Erec clapped Damen on the shoulder, whistled low with a pointed look at the passing Laurent’s rear, and gave him a thumbs up. In slow, heavily accented Akielon, he said, “Nice!” Thankfully, that was all he did. Truthfully, that and a handful of curse words made up all the Akielon Damen thought Erec knew.

“It’s really not like that,” Damen tried to protest, his stomach turning over at the _thought_ (and his mind inevitably returning to the baths, and what followed the baths, and the unsteady manner his right wing still had). Erec laughed at him about ‘Akielon prudishness’ and let him be. Erec was lucky Laurent didn’t currently feel like being a prince.

Two days after that, a tearful woman flagged them down from atop her overturned carriage. They kept their distance at first, though one of the other merchants leapt down to investigate after it was agreed this was quite the poor location for a trap (rocks dotted the hills on either of their sides, but a smart party would wait for the forests that threatened going forward). At the edge of the wreckage, the sun caught on gleaming metal - a glance behind, and two dusty men took aim with sharp arrows -- and Damen spurred his horse into a commotion, yelling a warning. It curbed the bandits’ time for an ambush, but they number greater than Damen would have guessed could hide in grassy hills, and the crying woman roped her arm around her investigator’s neck and dragged him back as a hostage. 

Unlike the batch before, these men knew what they were doing. The battle was messy, and though Damen and his company had learned how to work together, it proved an easy thing to split the other mercenaries. Oxen bellowed in fear as swords flashed before their faces; light-armored fliers hauled unsuspecting fighters a few feet into the air before dropping them; horses bucked their riders when arrows sang by their legs.

Half-way through the battle, Damen at last carved his way to his employer’s side on a side of a taller cart that wasn’t yet threatened by arrows, only to find Laurent already there, his sword dripping red, his clothes spattered, and his wings flared to an impressive height. Whatever display he’d put on had to be a good one, judging by the lack of bandits willing to rush him. 

“Andre!” Charls yelled, his eyes locked on the overturned wagon the woman and her hostage disappeared behind. “Please, Damen, you must help him!” 

“It may be too late,” Laurent murmured, voice pitched solely to Damen in what he thought of as a kind gesture. He kept his eyes on the men circling like vultures above, his own wings outstretched in challenge. “She had the look of someone who would rather leave an impression than leave empty-handed.”

Looking toward his panic-stricken employer, Damen admitted to himself that it was a fair point. But-- he couldn’t wait until it was a body thrown over that carriage. Not as long as there was a chance.

“You’re being a fool!” Followed him as, sword in hand, he hooded his wings and launched himself forward. The bowmen spotted him - the circling fliers targeted him - an arrow nicked his calf and he narrowly dodged a diver’s hasty swing - and the woman behind the wagon obviously expected someone to drop on her from the skies; when he skidded around the side, she screamed and whirled around. The knife she held at a pale-faced Andre’s throat cut a shallow gash in her surprise. Any longer and she’d have the man accidentally dead -- Damen closed his wings tight and lunged forward, swept her feet from under her and took her knife. Andre rolled to the side sputtering and coughing. Damen instructed him to stay behind the wagon’s cover until the bowmen were taken out. These instructions, he delivered with his own arm wrapped around the woman’s throat, which cut off her hissing about the great road’s best bandits and revenge swearing. Her rough, dusty, dappled wings fluttered furiously between them. The edges scrape at his arms and legs until Damen had enough of it and pinned her flat.

The bandits were good enough to put up a fight. They were also smart enough to recognize a lost cause. Soon enough, the circling vultures took altitude and disappeared toward the east; the arrows stopped, and the sounds of a skirmish fade.

“It shouldn’t have lasted that long,” Damen told Andre, who trembled in a corner of the wagon and looked at him as if seeing a ghost. “We’ll need to train in preparation for a repeat. And, please, fetch some rope.”

Andre gazed at him with eyes the size of Veretian dinner plates. “It’s alright to go out now?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” clipped Damen, exasperated.

The man scurried to do as asked. He nearly ran into Charls, who had similarly ran to check on him - the two men embraced, their wings aflutter in emotion behind them. Below him, the captured woman gagged. Damen gave her shoulder a shake for being rude, and then another for targeting _them_.

He only saw Laurent in passing - the man was surprisingly adept at knowing where extra hands were needed best, and he proved even better at recounting supplies, calming the animals, and making sure all who could be accounted for were. He dealt with the dead firmly but sympathetically, giving time for the men (low in number and now even lower) to recuperate before nudging them into moving forward. It didn’t seem like something that would come naturally to him, but it was impossible to deny the qualities as anything less than a leader’s. 

In the midst of tugging an arrow from a wagon’s side, Damen once again wondered where the man’s army might be. Less and less plausible was the thought that this was part of some grand scheme. It seemed as if Laurent was running away, that he truly intended to leave his royal duties behind.

But then night fell, their wagons temporarily stationed in an off-road grove, and with the sun gone, Damen wondered how he ever could have those thoughts. The Laurent that sat awake, his wings groomed back to perfection, his hair pinned back, with a marked map spread over three bolts of cloth had the eyes of a cat watching a mouse. Damen didn’t feel anything like a mouse, especially as he sat himself opposite Laurent, eyed the map, and calmly noted the arrows and lines drawn between an eastern fort - _Acq._ , as it was abbreviated - to Fortaine, and looping back to the hills populated by Vaskan tribes. Showing him the map was intentional. A stubborn part of him didn’t want to be taken in by the unspoken offer, just as he hadn’t wanted anything to do with the prince in the darkened forest outside that bad luck town. 

But, Damen surprised himself to find, the stubborn part of him had been worn down with curiousity and the easier rapport that had grown between them.

After a few beats of silence, he carefully lowered his wings in quiet acquiescence, leaned an elbow on a knee, and asked, “Well?” 

Laurent’s expression didn’t change as he began speaking of his plan. Nonetheless, they ended up talking into the early hours despite the day’s exertion (- it wasn’t much by military standards, but he’d thought for the other-- well, no matter). It was the longest conversation they’d had since the palace - since _before_ , maybe - and by the end, it dipped and turned like any other good conversation. Only it was better than any other good conversation, and this surprised Damen more than Laurent deciding to confide even just a piece of his goals with him: the blond turned out to be a decent conversationalist when he wasn’t full of barbs, with a dry humor that snuck in when least expected. Somehow, Damen knew this wasn’t what charmed Charls and, once upon a time, Torveld, but insofar as the two of them went, it was as friendly as Damen ever expected.

When they finally extinguished their lantern and Laurent tucked the map back into whatever place he hid it, the birds outside began their tentative morning singing.

The next night after burying the dead, organizing plans with _all_ the sellswords in the company, mentally berating himself for not doing so sooner, and drinking with an off-kilter Erec (his best friend, he said, had fallen to one of the first arrows), Damen nearly collapsed onto his bedroll.

He drifted off into a pleasantly warm fog when his erstwhile bedfellow’s words brought him back. 

“Your feathers are a _mess._ ”

 _Hnfhg?_ was a decent approximation of what Damen managed. A pause, and then Laurent continued with a lighter tone that he’d think amused from anyone else.

“How do you ignore that? They look terrible - coverts are not supposed to lay horizontal. I think I can see dirt. In fact, all I’m seeing is dirt.”

This wakes Damen up further, if only for his pride’s sake.

“Have you ever given them a proper grooming?”

“It isn’t high on my priority list,” drawled Damen in what he thought was a fair imitation of Laurent’s usual sardonic tone. While the other might have thought he meant recently, he really meant _never had it been a priority_. If his slaves did not keep his wings in proper order, then his friends took it upon themselves to remind him. It would occasionally end in a pleasant tussle which dirtied both parties, and then pleasant, companionable mutual grooming. That more frequently transformed into fingers slipping lower and lower, and more besides as their fancy took them. They were good memories. 

Laurent tsked, the sound low and strange in the dark. “You’re the sort who thinks because they’ll get dirty again, why bother straightening them now.”

Was this… a joke?

A little warily, “You caught me.” A pause. Less wary, as he craned his neck to look over his shoulder and meet glinting blue, “Why the sudden interest in my wings?”

Laurent blinked, but did not pause. “It isn’t interest. It’s practicality.” Damen _hmmed_ in modest disbelief. “Your pinions have finally regrown. Is it the scars underneath that keep you grounded?”

If there had been any droziness left in him, _that_ assured it fled. 

The sentiment caught him off guard. The tone measured to be nothing more or less than an honest question, the content put him on high alert. His thoughts raced for what Laurent possibly intended - another insult? A trick to lead him down memory lane? Even more than the refusal to expose his identity, he couldn’t imagine why the man would do something like that.

Laurent apparently decided he wouldn’t receive a response (he was right), for he continued after a moment. “You aren’t built to be a scout.”

For Veretians, lighter infantry flew while their slower, heavily plated brethren tramped beneath them on foot and horseback. 

But that was just it: _for Veretians._

“No Akielon soldier would wear armor that restricted flight.” Voice quiet, and measured, and teetering on the sharp side of educational. “I was no different.” 

For a moment, he has the absurd impression Laurent wrestled with himself to find words that might be comforting. An offer to bring him back to his doctors, perhaps; that was something the prince might think would have helped. 

Unable to bear it, Damen said, “Good night,” and wrapped his left wing over his head as he shut the conversation down as well as he could. He honestly didn’t expect Laurent to let him do so - the prince never had before, after all. In fact, an action like that typically spurred him on.

Incredibly: Laurent dropped it.

 

 

They keep the woman tied up in the luggage cart, and deliver her safely into the willing hands of a traveler’s post a number of leagues down the road. 

From there, they continue perpendicular to the sun’s journey overhead. A few of the swifter men take to patrolling the skies ahead of the caravan at irregular times; though they aren’t subtle in the least, they steer the oxen from two potentially hostile bands’ paths. By Damen’s lead - something his company didn’t mind, but the others needed to be convinced of (and they were, if not by word then by Damen’s skill and self-possession) - the sellswords grew into a coordinated party of their own. As for their employers, Damen couldn’t help but notice Laurent dropping hints here and there on how to cover wares and make their wagons temporarily look much less interesting than they were. Wagons creaked and wheels rolled, and bit by slow bit, they traveled south. The road thinned as they went, the tracks marking it as a clear trade route but any other traffic cut off.

“We should reach Ravenel by the week’s end,” Laurent told him one hot night with his map laid between them, the wagon’s tarp drawn tight and both of them without their jackets. In hushed tones they exchanged words in Akielon by, oddly, Laurent’s command, though it roused suspicion in Damen’s mind. The blond scoffed at him for being suspicious over _that_ , of all things.

“And then we part ways.” Damen replied. At the lack of the other’s answer, Damen decided he’d had enough half-stories and pressed, “That is the plan. You won’t need my muscle with an extra army at your beck and call.”

“It’ll be good to have a full night’s rest without all your snoring,” Laurent at last murmured.

Damen’s feathers ruffled. “I don’t snore.”

“You can’t be the authority on what you do and don’t do while asleep.”

“Someone would have told me if I snored.”

“Consider me to be ‘someone,’ then.” Laurent’s wings again did the little up-down twitch that Damen learned to look for; though the prince never smiled, the shifting made Damen’s mouth quirk up. 

The blond eyed him with insincere unhappiness, before he leaned forward again and pressed a finger into the map’s center.

In lightly accented Akielon, he half-asked, half-commanded, “Tell me about Delfeur’s populations, here. Are they mostly farmers?”

 

 

As the time grew nearer, a feeling not unlike anticipation coiled in the back of his mind. What made him uneasy was that it wasn’t necessarily… _excitement._ Returning to Akielos filled him with warmth, but parting from Charls’ party -- and, a bit, Laurent’s consistent company - didn’t appeal as much as it once had. 

He rationalized the uncertainty came from his bundle of unanswered questions. First, why had Laurent kept Damen’s identity secret? Why not turn him in, collect the reputation, and be done with him? Because it would obscure the chance of finding the real culprit behind the assassination, perhaps (laying next to the still living blond gave him time to think about that night again, and while those on the council were the only ones he could think would have armed and let the men in, he couldn’t see what they had to gain by removing the crown prince). In any case, even if keeping his own name off the records - and he still went by ‘Jord’ to everyone else, which was a smaller curiousity - made sense for traveling discretely, when it came to Damen… Well. The next question: it felt almost like they were getting along. Actually, Damen was pretty sure they _were_ getting along. It was… a pity, or something like that. But they would meet again if Laurent’s overly complicated plans didn’t land him in the hot water he mostly deserved. 

Other, older questions came to mind, too. Where _was_ that army he set off from Arles. Why the secrecy. Why travel to Ravenel, if not for war.

He tried to ask, one night. Laurent’s entire face had shuttered closed, an expression which Damen had all of a second to register before the blond redirected the conversation to rumors of aggression from the south, and the coincidence of someone trying to the same trick twice on opposite ends of Vere. It didn’t make much sense, but then, maybe it did: an faked Akielon band in the north, and faked Akielon aggression in the south. It spoke of a deep conspiracy -- if Laurent knew who that ‘someone’ was, and had anything close to proof. Which he didn’t. Or so Damen though, since he didn’t attempt to convince Damen of who that ‘someone’ could be.

He wondered. For a few afternoons, he found himself falling out of focus, he wondered so much.

During the crawl of the sixth day, he brought his horse near Charls’ cart. At the merchant’s side rode Laurent, who looked uncharacteristically puzzled for his Jord persona. 

With the perfect amount of confusion and sincerity, Laurent’s blue eyes beseeched Charls for an answer. “We should see Ravenel in the distance by the sun’s half mark, shouldn’t we?” 

The merchant returned his confusion with a raised eyebrow of his own, the ox’s reins loose in his hands. “Oh, no, my boy, we’re not going to _Ravenel._ ” 

Laurent and Damen both paused. 

Laurent prompted, his voice far less tentative than before, “We aren’t?” 

“Heavens, no. The inns within the fort charge exuberant prices, and the _declaration forms_ \-- it’s far too much work. Sometimes we make the trek to remind the lords of our faces, but with the recent news of Akielon raids in the area and talk of war, it isn’t worth the risk.”

“I see.” Flatter yet. “But… If I might ask… Why travel through Arran, and not Aller? It’s far safer passage to the west.”

Charls chuckled with the good nature of an experienced traveler imparting wisdom on the younger generation. Damen winced _for_ Laurent. “We hadn’t news of the raids until we came this far, for one. For two, even if we don’t stop at Ravenel, the border posts on Aller’s side pay close attention to what moves through their lands. Arran is more, ah, forgiving. If the weather holds- which I’ve been assured that it will- we won’t see anyone again until we’re well into Delpha!”

 

 

“L-- _Jord._ You’re leaving?”

“I should have known a cloth merchant would be tempted by _tax evasion._ ” Cold as ice, Laurent packed his meager belongings into a bag with too much force to truly portray calm. Jerking its top closed, the strings knotted tight, he stood and shouldered his way past Damen and out of their shared wagon. Bag hooked over his shoulders and fastened at the waist, he shook his wings out as if preparing for a long flight. Really, he was: if they were as far off track from Ravenel as Charls said, it would be a three day flight at a marathoner’s pace. Laurent had strength, but Damen couldn’t imagined he’d trained for _that._

Apparently, his staring and silence was not what Laurent expected; before he took to the skies, he glanced back, his chin raised high and jaw tense. 

“Yes. I’m leaving.”

The restrained fury reminded Damen of the night in the tavern - it radiated with something close to despair, as if Laurent’s options ran thin enough that a simple three day set-back spelled the end. Again, it struck him as so unlike the collected, sharp Laurent from the palace, or the focused, patient Laurent of Jord the apprentince. They were all pieces that made up the whole, Damen knew, but this one-- didn’t suit Laurent. It looked like weakness.

“I don’t suppose you want a good-bye?” The blond drawled. “Truthfully, you weren’t supposed to see me leave.”

Damen’s mind restarted and sputtered to rapid, panicked life.

 _He’s going to Ravenel._ The raids, the threat of war. _He’ll join his army, and he’ll take the revenge his country wants for an act he can’t prove came from the inside._

“We would meet again.” This gave the man pause. A step forward, and Damen saw the exact moment Laurent’s guard snapped up. “But I can’t let you leave. You can’t go to Ravenel.”

The words weighed heavy between them, suspended in silence as Laurent’s eyes tracked over his frame and neither of them moved an inch. Around them was close to perfect silence. Besides the watch, who turned their attentions outward, everyone grabbed what sleep they could. He could see response after plan after bitten-off retort pass behind through his mind. 

“The tensions are too high.” He spoke as if from far away. “If you appear as Veretian royalty on the border--”

“If nothing else, get this through your thick skull: I _don’t want war_ \--” 

“-- The Kyros will take it as preparatory. They’re nervous! Ravenel will want revenge for those raids, whether or not they are authentic.”

“There will be negotiations before that point. I never planned to enter Akielos so.”

 _All words and poison, these Veretians._ He wasn’t entirely sure how much that implied to Laurent, but - he had to remember everything within Charls’ camp was an act. Common sense would keep true intentions out of their late-night talks. Damen was, as far as Laurent knew - all that Laurent knew -, an enemy soldier turned slave.

Throat dry, never before had Damen been so aware of time’s passage.

Finally, he demanded:

“And when your army arrives?”

Laurent laughed. A short, mean sound, it gasped from his throat and fell, humourless, between them.

“What army?” 

Wings spread, he launched himself into the air, narrowly missing Damen’s head and leaving swirling dust in his wake.

Instinct spread his own wings to take chase, legs bent and muscles screeching as he took to the air. Twelve wingbeats and ten feet later, he touched back onto the ground with a snarl, his right wing refusing to curve to the air’s demand and his furiously overcompensating left sending him into a tailspin. Using them instead to give him a boost in land speed, he tore his way through a confused camp to his horse, saddling and bridling her, assuring concerned merchants and mercenaries alike that there was no emergency even as he half-leapt onto his steed and spurred her in the direction Laurent left.

There were a few ways to mask one’s trajectory even in a wide-open sky. The easiest was to keep low to the ground and dodge around whatever obstacles might appear. With the flat expanse between Arran and Delpha, it made for a fine exercise in how low a person could get before a misjudged flap sent them tumbling painfully across the ground. 

During the night, the dangers ramped up exponentially. It didn’t surprise him that Laurent chose that method regardless.

Freeing as flight felt and fast as it could be over short distances, a horse would always win in a content of endurance. Recalling Laurent’s map, he knew the direct path to Ravenel. Recalling Laurent, he angled himself slightly south, across land flat enough so as to be less harrowing on wing.

For too long a stint, his horse’s hoofs were the only sounds he heard. Doubt trickled into his mind: to reach Ravenel the fastest, a straight shot was the best bet. Perhaps he miscalculated, and Laurent didn’t factor in him following. 

He finally pulled his mare to a stop atop a hill. Her sides heaved, her head dipping and tossing with restless energy, her teeth gnashing around her bit. There was no way anyone could have out-flown him. He must have over-shot his direction. Laurent could be _anywhere_. In the east, the sky lightened with pink and cotton blue streaks. In the south, bugles sounded.

Thoughtlessly, he turned toward the horn. Recognizable even after so many months, it was only with the slightest hesitation that he spurred his mount homeward. 

Another bugle - another _Akielon signal_ \- sounded, this one shorter. The scouts had found something of interest, something non-violent, and they were returning to the main battalion with it. 

Heart in his throat, his urged his steed faster. His wings itched to open, and his impatience with being trapped on the ground peaked. At the crest of a ravine as he overlooked a sea of tents that flew his friend’s banner, his breath escaped and his lungs refused to fill. Above, he spotted three armed figures angling their wings toward him. Below, four dark figures ushered pale wings and a pale head from the camp’s fringes to what Damen could only assume was the commander’s tent. 

Dismounting, he waited for the scouts to reach him. They asked if he was Akielon, their swords half out their sheaths and the suspicion over two strangers in one night clear. 

He replied, “I’m Akielon, born of Ios, and I must speak with General Nikandros immediately.”


	2. the landing

No one prioritized staying clean while on the road. Nonetheless, there was a certain level of hygiene Damen had enjoyed since he was a small boy, a level of which his times at war failed to dent-- in part due to concern over disease and wound management-, never mind his time as a slave. That level was rather basic. When near a stream, wash. When water became scarce and regulated exclusively to wetting animals’ and men’s throats, utilize what was around. In Vere’s southern grasslands, that meant to find whatever patch of dry earth was around and take a little tumble. Dirt baths weren’t the best, and they left a telling dusting over _everything_ , but it was better than the itching rashes and mites that otherwise resulted. 

One brief stop during a hot afternoon to re-set a loose wheel presented the perfect opportunity to shuck his wing covers and jacket and find such a place. It wasn’t princely, but that hadn’t been a concern in close to a year. It felt incredible to stretch out under the sun. The chances for _that_ were few and far in between.

He remembered returning to the wagons, dusty and content, to Laurent’s side-long look. Come to think of it, he’d never seen the blond take a dirt bath. Then again, the very image of him rolling around in the dirt amused him greatly. When Laurent dryly commented he wasn’t surprised by Damen’s apparent fondness for dirt, he could only shake his head and chuckle. It was one of a few comfortable, easy memories that didn’t involve plotting the fastest routes through mountains.

In Marlas, rolling in the dirt wasn’t necessary.

Royalty received the best rooms in the fort, and the kyros of Marlas received Damianos as royalty. 

If the breath in a crowded room had tasted like freedom, the moment the doors of his elegantly simple room closed behind him felt like coming home.

Coordination between army - shocked at his appearance, baffled by his being _alive_ , soldier and friend alike scrambled to make the proper arrangements for him - and nobility took time even in land as military-focused as Delpha. Even with the travel _to_ Marlas (fortunately the direction they had been headed in) and all the time it offered to catch him up on Akielos’ going-ons, it was well into the twilight hours before Damianos felt satisfied enough to retire. 

His hand rose to rub at his bare neck. It felt surreal to not run into warmed metal. He’d been born to be a King, but when he looked at the grand, red-swathed bed illuminated with flickering candle-light, _Kingship_ was perhaps… a little longer in coming. 

In the morning, he strode past the secondary accommodations for persons of note: a door that led to a spiraling staircase, if he recalled corrected, that eventually flattened into a circular room. It made up the only luxurious tower in Marlas, and it wasn’t even that high, by Veretian standards. Two guards stood, attentive and unmoving, at its entrance. Damianos contemplated the dark oak for one moment, his own newly appointed guard halting with him. He wasn’t away of it, but something in him made a decision, as his feet eventually carried him past. _Later,_ he told himself.

The moment they’d brought him to Nikandros’ tent with Laurent already in questioning - when Nikandros identified him with wide eyes and a bow that was more of a collapse onto his knee - Damianos had faced first his countrymen and then his former master. The prince had met his eyes without a single twitch in the wing to give away his thought when his name fell from his friends’ lips. 

They (as if there even was a ‘they,’ the prince’s willing surrender or not) hadn’t yet discussed it, even in passing. In part because Damen avoided asking, and in part because there simply wasn’t the moment to spare.

Open-backed and loose, Akielon dress showcased the body from top to toe. When he’d at last exchanged the Veretian jacket for a single-pinned chiton, he’d struggled with himself for a good amount of time before also requesting a short cape for his shoulders and back. One’s wings were a part of one’s presence, but a cape wasn’t too far out of fashion to be unreasonable. In any case, his feathers had mostly regrown over the mesh of scar-tissue. A breeze wouldn’t reveal anything startling unless someone knew what they were looking for. Besides, it seemed like such a trifling thing.

More worrisome was his continued inability to manage more than a glide, but that-- he brought up only to the top physician, of whom looked at him with his eyes so wide that Damen feared they’d roll out of his skull, and then what use would the man be? But eventually he schooled his features, and discussed the possibility of cutting and re-sewing the flesh into something more flexible. It would be take months at the least for Damianos to regain complete control of his wings, _but_ , the physician hurriedly assured him, _he would fly again. It was a good thing he’d committed to those exercises._

Time was of the essence even when safely locked away in a hard-won fort. This was to be a southern campaign’s beginning. 

As with the collar, he hadn’t the time to worry about pains in his back. He would take Ios on wing or on foot, and Kastor would answer him.

If not - as people bowed at his passing, as he dressed in loose, open-backed clothing, as his host introduced him to a very fine slave at their welcoming feast - he feared old doubt would rot him from the inside out. 

Nikandros, his friend once and again, sat to his right as he called his men to order. While the welcoming feast had been a celebration of his return and the glad tidings could still be felt in the fort’s walls, worrying reports darkened their faces almost before the good wine of the night before ran its course. Judging by the blood-shot eyes of a few of the men collected around the low table, the wine hadn’t beaten the talks.

“Tensions with Ravenel are at a breaking point. They demand compensation for the raids upon their villages, but no commander has stepped foot over the border.”

“They should curb their own vagrants before blaming Akielos,” murmured one commander, five men down from Damianos’s seat at the front.

“They’d first need to concern themselves with the truth,” responded another. The tension in the room was palpable. The men were willing to march south, but they first wished to secure their homes. They would march if he ordered it. He could not. According to scouts, Ravenel, true to worries spoken in a wagon’s dark bed, bustled with soldiers. Fortaine was a more immediate concern as far as proximity went, but the quickest line to Ios ran through Marlas; if they could expect a siege, there needed to be preparations made.

So the soldiers before him clamored, at least, as their hands twitched for their swords and their feathers ruffled outward. The battle for Delpha was not long from this land’s memory. 

Damianos’s mouth thinned. 

“The bandits should have been welcomed,” one captain muttered darkly after the session’s formal resolution, possibly not expecting to be heard. “They’re yellow-bellied kin.”

When Damianos raised his voice, halting everyone in their tracks, the captain’s head lowered quickly. Ah. He hadn’t expected to be heard.

“First, negotiations.” So he had decided, so it would be done. His first move as King. It felt--- not as he’d expected. He’d always preferred military action; apparently, that hadn’t changed, though he knew now he had to try the other way. “Fetch our fastest flier and rider. One for Fortaine, and one for Ravenel. If it is bloodshed they want, it will begin by their hand.”

All nodded assent. At his side, he felt Nikandros’s eyes on him, at once warm and steady.

 

 

It was slow going. 

The terms drawn and his proclamation as King marked, the messengers departed with their escorts. Word would reach Kastor before they did, Damen knew. Word would also reach the intermediary kyroi. He focused his mind on the situation within Delpha as exclusively as he could, but he couldn’t help his mind being pulled south. Nikandros called him on it: a straight-forward, blunt, _anyone can see you’re jumping to leave this nest_. Damianos appreciated it.

Three days after arrival and eleven days after finding Nikandros’s troop, he at last visited their guest in the tower.

Guest wasn’t, perhaps, the right term. Prisoner would be more accurate, but - something told Damianos that if Laurent truly wished to leave, he was fully capable of puzzling out how. As it was, he asked for nothing but paper and ink, and that his messages be delivered swiftly. They vetted the messages. None yet had been delivered. This, Damianos also thought Laurent knew.

“Arles,” Laurent told him before the door even closed behind him, his guard told to wait in the hall, “will also know. Possibly before your bastard of a brother if he’s as thick in the head as he seems.”

The blond stood by the room’s largest window, outlined by the light that spilled over the room and cast short shadows beyond couches and tables. Most towers opened to a balcony, if not at least a skylight large enough for the average person to flit through. This one was peculiar in its lack of both. It suited the prisoner part of Laurent’s status well enough.

The comment didn’t make sense without context.

Damen wondered, a little tired, which guard Laurent charmed into keeping him up to date.

“Good afternoon to you, too.” He moved to sit on the couch. Laurent’s eyes followed him part of the way there, and then returned to the window, dismissive. At least that hadn’t changed. Damen stretched his uncovered wings out behind him and, in general, made himself comfortable. It took less than four seconds for Laurent to formulate his retort.

“Good afternoon,” Laurent simpered to his reflection before he turned slowly to face Damianos and bowed his head in mocking deference, his white-caped, white-streaked wings held tight to his back. “Would you like me to thank you for gracing me with your exalted presence? Perhaps some groveling, as every man, woman, child and barnyard animal seems happy to do?”

“Nikandros may be your official keeper,” Damen started, eyeing the blond, “but I am his King. He will follow most any suggestion I make.”

“Yes,” returned Laurent in such a honeyed voice it could have drowned a lesser man, “that does tend to be how Kingships work. Kings at the top, any others below. I’ve noted the quality doesn’t vary much here - it’s hard to tell a prince from a slave.”

Damianos stilled. 

He opened his mouth. As was his custom, Laurent cut him off.

“Did you honestly think,” now he was cold, detached, “that I didn’t know your identity?” He drew himself up and looked at Damen as if looking at a particularly disgusting beetle.

In the back of his mind, he wondered at the ease in their conversations on the road. The small jokes in the wagon, the companionable silences. It was all tension under thin ice in this small, well-lit room.

“You say you want peace,” the blond laid out slowly, his eyes pinned on Damen and his tongue cutting every syllable short, “and you have in your possession a prince of whom has visited Ravenel on multiple occasions. Every nook, every cranny - the lord’s state of affairs - there is very little that can be hidden in a fort locked up that tight from curious eyes.”

That--- was too far. Damen pushed himself up, his mouth a sharp frown. He opened his mouth. He began with, “A spoiled prince who lost his army riding through his own country, and you dare barter _me_ advice?”

And then he stopped, and _looked_ at the man before him. Laurent didn’t budge, didn’t blink. The light behind him softened and shadowed his front, the whites of his eyes the only aspect that caught a gleam. As far as any knew, he cared for his men only in the sense that its loss hurt his pride. As far as Damen knew, his guards - Jord, Orlant - had held their loyalty to him closer than some believed in their own King, and more, that he had to be as close to a frenzy as he’d ever seen the prince in order to admit it. That could have been because it was a weakness, but… He hadn’t asked Charls to call him Jord out of cruelty toward the dead.

So. He stopped. He carefully unclenched his fists. 

After a beat of silence - Laurent’s chin raised just an inch.

“You came here for a reason.” As if he spoke to a child. It grated, but it didn’t sting. As of the night in the woods all those weeks ago, Damen thought he caught the span of something he didn’t fully believe existed beneath Laurent’s words. “I don’t think I’m wrong.”

“Of course you don’t,” Damen said, his frustration leaked to his surface. Laurent didn’t budge.

It never hurt to have an insider’s knowledge. If that insider could be trusted. If Laurent was even an insider. But then, he wasn’t offering a blueprint of the fort he’d never made it to: rather, he offered word on its court. His father wouldn’t trust it. It came from a foul-mouthed snake.

Finally, Damen turned for the door.

“We’ll see about your letters.”

 

 

Laurent’s letters left with the next messenger, bound for Ravenel and Fortaine both.

King Damianos sent a declaration of Prince Laurent’s imprisonment with it. That was his kyros’s idea. It contained not a ransom, but rather, a warning of consequence to any escalated aggressions. That was Laurent’s idea.

 

 

Within the month, the borders tense but manageable, they began their trek south. Damen received a better horse than the chestnut mare he’d rode for his escape across Vere. It was almost a shame to see her trod along as a replacement for another, but she hadn’t been trained for the combat a marching troop could expect.

Now a declared hostage, Laurent rode behind him in the finest Veretian clothing he had, which turned out to be parade standard, cloak, sunburst-embroidered wing covers and all. How he’d fit it in his meager travel bag, Damen didn’t know, but the blue amidst the proud red stood out like the ill fitted soldier he was. He was not given a sword to complete the ensemble. One man proposed hobbling him to ensure he didn’t fly away. The still look on Laurent’s face had Damen assuring the well-intentioned man that wouldn’t be necessary.

Makedon was the next to meet with Damianos. They pitched their camps near each other, a smaller army - not all could be spared from Marlas; Damianos didn’t begrudge them that - next to a miniature behemoth. The mood was good. The soldiers were happy to serve who they always thought would be their King. Makedon approved of Damianos, especially after hearing of his trek across Vere to reach Marlas, and even more so after Kastor’s messengers found them and delivered a message of uncompromising, slanderizing vitriol. He did not approve of Laurent, perhaps particularly because of Laurent’s divulging Ravenel’s lord’s secrets, but he did approve of the noose around the Regent that the prince represented. 

(As they received no word from Laurent’s uncle, Damen wondered just how much of a noose it really was).

(He asked Laurent, once. Or, he almost did. “The Regent--”)

(“My uncle,” a drawl to mask the fact he’d been hasty enough to cut Damen off, “will do what he deems necessary.” He did nothing but request more paper, and books, so he wouldn’t be so tediously bored.)

 

 

Ios, Damen is both pleased and unsettled to find, is just about the same as it had been when he’d left. The long road up to the white walled palace; the tunnels mapped in the cliffside, where the sides pressed close enough to threaten one’s wing-tips but the ground was too slick from sea-mist to walk; the market stalls, the open homes, the high arches and even taller towers. 

Kastor ran.

Jokaste fled only days before to a location unknown. The nobles left behind spoke of her pregnancy, and a search followed whatever leads they could find.

Kastor, they dragged back in chains. He begged, he pled, swore up and down it was not his plan, but rather Jokaste’s, and then the Regent’s, and then anyone who wasn’t him. Nikandros made note of it in an aside, not that Damianos needed it pointed out to notice. After so long in the Veretian court, even if he hadn’t been a participant, Kastor’s attempts at deception seemed comparable to an elephant hiding behind a sapling. More usefully, Nikandros stayed by his side as he declared Kastor’s execution date. He would wield the sword. It was only right.

It didn’t feel like a full answer, even when his half-brother’s body crumpled at his feet. Satisfaction sat out of his reach. Perhaps, he thought, the surrealness of the situation like a hood over his head, a servant bowing low to reclaim the bloodied sword, that was simply because he hadn’t wanted it to be true. The hunger that grew behind his breastbone - that might be a King’s affliction. If he had to name the feeling, he wasn’t sure he could; it most reminded him of the drive that may have spurred his father to war. Damianos wasn’t used to it -- it made him uncomfortable to dwell on - but then, the golden laurel on had barely warmed atop his head. These things took time.

He finally called on the royal physician to begin reknitting his wings. 

At long last, the Regent sent word. Congratulations first; no word of surprise, though the rumors between him as the slave Damen and him as King Damianos were far and in between and often met with firm reproach within Akielos’s lands; condolences third, on the struggles he must have faced; and, finally, an attachment of gifts for the new King, materials that ranged from an ornate, jeweled golden lion to five bolts of the best, purple Veretian cloth. It wasn’t much reparation from a man who had sided with a usurper, but if the Regent bet on Damianos being too distracted with pulling his Kingdom into order, then he’d - frustratingly - bet correctly. Most worrying was the ease in which his fellow countrymen accepted the Regent’s messengers into the court. His councillors spoke freely with the new ambassador, and the palace guards didn’t blink twice at the Veretian red that walked the halls.

It didn’t matter, he tried to tell himself. Within the year, Akielos would be all the healthier without Kastor at its helm. That there was only one attachment inquiring on the state of his nephew’s health didn’t pass Damen’s notice; he delegated its report to Ios’s aging kyros, who delivered the news to Laurent without apparent consequence.

It didn’t matter, but it grated.

News came of decreased military presence along the border, save for - oddly - a fraction of the prince’s soldiers stationed at Acquitart. When Damen went to talk to with the prince in question about it, he found the consequence for the Regent’s letter: the blond’s tongue had worsened a thousand-fold, every remark dripping with mean humor, and he held himself so tightly by the room’s window that Damen thought he was one moment from flinging himself through the glass. 

He tried his best to keep his temper, but as it was, dealing with the Veretian prince in such a mood felt akin to an unnecessary, tedious burden. He was unimpressed. He told Laurent as much.

“You kept me,” with a flick of the wrist to encompass the room and the entirety of Akielos stretching outside of it, “now, you have to deal with me.”

“Your army,” Damen replied, eyes glued to the prince, “waits at Acquitart.”

Laurent shrugged, dismissive as ever. After a bit, he at last hummed, “Funny.”

“Enlighten me.” 

“My army suffered an ambush near the foothills. Less than two dozen walked away unscathed; as my physician also fell prey to the sword, the injured didn’t make it far. By the end, I’d wager no more than ten reached our original destination. That’s a band, not an army. So whatever soldiers you’re hearing about aren’t, and never have been, mine.”

He delivered the words without apparent care, but they drew Damen up short. If this were anyone else, he’d demand an explanation. 

With Laurent - he turned and, opening the door to the guards outside, bid them to fetch a pitcher of water and plate of dried fruits. He took a deep breath. And then he turned back, and, under the other’s suspicious eye, took a seat, and settled in for a talk. 

“Your goal hasn’t been to reach Ios.”

“It’s an ugly city posed atop a ludicrous cliff, the people have no sense of taste in foods or fashions, and the weather’s atrocious.”

Damen ignored this. “You’ve been seeking an army to replace the one you lost. To fight your uncle?”

“Must we go through this conversation again and again? It’s a wonder you remember your own name. What if I came all this way for the opportunity to finish what I should have done while you were strung to that flogging post?”

If he had, he wouldn’t have waited this long. Damen ignored this as well. “So, not an army. The Regent doesn’t want war.”

“A man doesn’t need war to bring dogs to heel.”

The next words weighed in his mind; he turned them over and over before he dared give them shape The one by the window watched him, his arms deceptively loose at his sides. 

Eventually, Laurent continued. His voice dropped into something - closer to how he’d spoken in the wagons. More honest. It mirrored his bet all those weeks ago on Andres’ life being forfeit to the bandit, actually, and that made Damen uneasy. Emphasis fell on _you_ , though it conceivably shifted to _him._

“You could have an ocean’s worth of patience, and you won’t beat him.”

He eyed him. A knock at the door declared their food and drink had arrived. Before he called for them to enter, he made a decision. Not his second or third as King, but maybe his first as King Damianos. 

“Not alone, maybe.”

Head turned toward the servant bearing food, he didn’t completely miss Laurent’s surprised blink, nor the calculating look that followed.

 

 

For a brief time, Ios busied itself almost exclusively with ceremonious festivities. She had her rightful King back, insofar as the populace was concerned; Kastor hadn’t been questioned, but Damianos was the face and name they knew since his birth. Damianos had won at Marlas. Damianos had returned with a captured prince. Damianos would restore Akielos’s glory as much as his late father had. 

Most knew about the scars on his back. They were impossible to hide in a wrestling match, and of course Damianos participated (and won) in his celebration’s wrestling match. He addressed them with confidence that the masses interpreted as pride and further proof of victory. Pallas, his wrestling opponent, his skin unmarred and strong, his eyes bright and his wings as large as his brave heart, could not have looked happier at the honor of wrestling his King. Very few knew of any time spent in slavery, and those who suspected kept their voices to a whisper. It wasn’t as if they spoke to courtly Veretians on the regular, let alone believed those who did venture into Ios. 

“You can tell everything’s been set to rights when Makedon’s story about fending off the Vaskan clan with one hand tied begins to make its rounds,” Nikandros commented over his mug of Makedon’s heady alcohol. Damianos snorted at him over the rim of his own cup. But no, that wasn’t the end. His friend leaned heavily on a knee toward his King, his flushed face as serious as someone into his third mug could look. “We’ve regained our focus. Moreover,” his hand settled on Damianos’ shoulder, “you’re back.”

There was no helping a grin. “It’s good to be, too.”

His friend nodded, his own smile much smaller than a drunk man’s should be. “Welcome home, Damianos.” And then he gave his shoulder a small push and called for a slave to fetch more with the challenge, “I won’t bore you with another toast, but I won’t have your cup run dry this night. Did Veretian’s thin wines soften you up?”

“You’ll regret that comment, my brother,” Damen laughed.

“I sincerely hope I do,” came his reply, before the slave arrived with her jug, and Makedon’s story reached the point where his audience roared in disbelief, and even the air fizzled at the edges with the joy contained within the halls.

 

 

A model of perfect behavior, their prisoner is soon allowed certain privileges under the correct level of supervision. These privileges stretch farther than the statute originally meant them to go. Nikandros warned him to be careful. Damianos, who hadn’t told Nikandros of his scars’ origin, did his best to assure his friend that he knew what to watch for.

Not that anyone truly did when it came to the Veretian prince, last of all him. Nikandros’s flat look spoke as much. There wasn’t much else to say.

He’s magnificent in the sky, because of course he is. The sun turns the grey in his feathers to silver, and his sharp silhouette cuts like an arrow. It isn’t hard to see he has the breeding and constitution to reach the clouds; it didn’t take much convincing to believe he could catch the moon, if the fancy took him. Without the press of angry men on his heels, Laurent’s aerial acrobatics are lazy, looping, and appear so effortless as to steal the breath from any on-looker’s lungs. There are a few friendly competitions that require taking flight amid any decent festival, but they aren’t what convinced Laurent of Vere to take to the sky. 

Rather, the goading figure proves to be Makedon, whose own age-roughened, pitch colored wings raise and lower in alternating degrees of reluctant admiration for the ‘spoiled prince’s’ control. Damianos finds them in the practice fields, a handful of Makedon’s soldiers perched atop wall-top and lowly bench. When Laurent lands, a slight sheen of sweat covers his face, and a few blond hairs defying gravity. Makedon clapped the man on the shoulder, his reluctance turned good humored laughing. Laurent stumbled under the man’s friendliness, but he recovered into the picture of politeness that he’d kept up throughout their march south. With just a slightest sharp edge of wit, he transformed himself into a curious, intelligent, and ultimately, very appealing conversational partner, despite his accent and despite his origin. Compared to the person Damen spoke with privately, the shift was enough to make his head spin. 

As the dust settled around them, however, he couldn’t help a wry amusement over the change. Laurent typically attempted to ruin his amusement with a quips about Akielon short-sightedness explaining how Kastor shipped him off in chains, or their lack of dress explaining the perpetual heatstroke they all seemed to suffer, or Makedon’s bullish traditions and manners sabotaging his leadership. Damen pointed out Laurent shouldn’t be the one to talk about the ill effects of stubbornness. Laurent told him he was nothing compared to the current Akielon King. Also, would he mind providing cotton for his ears? The festivities were excessive.

Not everyone was pleased with Laurent’s captivity, and that wasn’t to say any Veretian delegations had been accepted into Ios’s walls. 

“You dare mock the dead?” Demanded Nikandros, seated at Damianos’s right and rightfully angry. 

“Exalted, he committed treason.” Said one, held upright by two palace guards. His two friends bobbed their heads toward the floor, their eyes bloodshot but their jaws resolutely shut, not daring to look up. The one in the middle was too bold by far. “Your punishment was just. We simply wanted to express our hope for future justice against the lawless villains.”

To that, dry as the straw they’d used to stuff the creations: “He was, at one point, my half-brother.” A beat. “And the other is a prince, no matter what else he may currently be.”

This knocked the young man silent. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t stay quiet forever. He knew he was in trouble, his voice said as much; he was not smart enough to keep from arguing. “She was not. And-- and- Exalted, he is Veretian. They’ve committed worse than a harmless prank.”

On the last day of the week-long feasts, a portion of the attendees allowed the wine to go to their heads. That was the excuse they gave, at least, their boasting to their fellows filled with derision and an unwavering belief no punishment would befall them. The children of middling nobles, better had been expected from them. One was in training to join the King’s guard. Another, a future scribe for the court. Boys made mistakes, but boys didn’t hang straw likenesses from rooftops and set them ablaze within full view of the copy’s original.

Unwilling to acknowledge that feeble protest with a reply, Damianos narrowed his eyes. The guards’ grip tightened around thin arms.

From the side, five seats from Damianos, his hands folded in his lap and expression blank, Laurent watched Damianos first and his three fellow prisoners last.

“An insult to Kastor and the Veretian prince is an insult to me. Reparations will be made in payment and time; you’ll be suspended from your duties, and barred from work within Ios.”

They didn’t protest with anything but their eyes.

Damianos, disgusted, rose. His court rose after him. “So it will be done. Dismissed.”

 

 

“Less energy spent on the down-thrust equals more energy to spend on holding steady. Which, frankly, your form? It’s appalling.”

“It’s been some time since I’ve flown farther than a horse’s length.”

“Even before that, it isn’t hard to imagine your dreadful form. You rely too much on strength. It’s obvious at a glance.”

“Part of flying is _staying aloft._ ”

“ _Really?_ ”

“Don’t give me that look.” Damen’s feathers ruffled out. Despite the fact they were alone on Laurent’s balcony, the cool night still around them, he did nothing to smooth them down. Laurent didn’t offer help. As more of an after-thought than he’d wanted, he huffs, “We’re built differently. Our forms will naturally differ.”

“The good and the mediocre do tend to separate themselves that way.”

“If I had the time to dance in the clouds every day, I would.”

The blond hummed, his elbows on the railing and hands dangling loose over the edge. For a moment, they fell to silence. 

The room overlooked the palace’s main gardens. The soot-stained tiles from the weekend before had long been replaced by the servants. Coupled with the quarter moon’s silver light, it truly made for a beautiful picture. And yet-- well. It went without stating where Damen’s eyes lingered.

Eventually: “When is the operation?”

He shouldn’t have known it was that close. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t know.

Damen decided he didn’t mind, and wondered only a little.

“Two nights hence.”

“After, then.” Laurent said, his eyes on the marble pillars below. 

Damen eyed him, caught in bemusement. “You’ll teach me how to fly?”

Laurent snorted, but he gave an almost-smile that beat out anything he’d given before. “That would take a miracle. But, plush as this cell is, I haven’t much else to do.”

 

 

It hurt.

Quite a bit.

It hurt for the days he wasn’t allowed to move farther than his bedroom door. Servants - not slaves - delivered papers for him, ferrying policies and concerns in and out of his quarters, which truthfully galvanized him to recover faster than the physicians predicted. They brought him a salve not unlike the one in Vere, though this came as a yellow paste and smelled faintly of herbs. They also had him drinking a thick, milky concoction which had him partly convinced they were trying to sabotage his stomach as well as his wings.

Fortune held, and nothing immediate occurred while he was confined to his bed. Nothing with an immediate answer, at least: the passage of time dictated that Jokaste, somewhere, had given birth to a child of royal blood. She had to be located, for that and her outstanding trial. Nikandros visited until he confessed he had to return to Marlas within the week; Damianos was sorry to see him go, and that was genuine. Laurent did not visit. Damianos pretended he didn’t notice as much as he truly did.

 

 

Nikandros left. Makedon and his top men followed. A day, a week, a month passed. Damianos returned to court. The Regent sent word that he hopes to visit Ios with all his council for a formal extension to the treaties Kastor had signed and Damianos, cautiously, followed. Everyone in the court had ambivilance about the Regent: where one might voice dissatisfaction, another voiced advantages, and overall, no one felt strongly one way or another. They felt like they had control with the man’s nephew locked in a tower (and riding in the paddock, and studying in their parlor, and mailing letters - at least, the ones Damen knew about, which he now suspected Laurent had private channels of his own established, and traversing the palace’s grounds with minimal security). 

The lack of unease made Damen uneasy. He pulled his council members aside one by one: during a feast, during their children’s training in the yard, late at night and early in the morning. They fished, they hunted, they were flattered by such attention from a King, and of course, yes, admittedly, well, it’s just, they had been in contact with this or that Veretian aristocrat, and yes, of course, he could see the communications. A few came clean with such talk. A few more, Damen grew inventive with.

It turned out members - Guion, first; Herode, second; men Damen didn’t recognize by name, the rest - had been gracious with gifts. Under Kastor’s watch, Vere eked through Ios’s cracks. 

Unease blossomed into distaste. It sat, heavy, in the back of his mind.

The exercises he’d cobbled together on the road were sharpened by experts. Though his feathers had only just begun to regrow along the back of his wings, and though patches would forever be nothing more than scarred skin, his feet left the solid ground for the short distance of one platform to another, and he laughed like a boy once alone. He hadn’t managed to fly before reaching his country, but-- this would do. Yes, this would do.

A servant boy approached him after he’d sent word for the Regent to join him in Ios and began to ready himself for revisions. Dressed in loose training clothes, he stood under the sun with wings outstretched and took the time to feel the slight breeze, to look up and puzzle where the best current might flow, on what updraft he would find the best leverage. He hadn’t managed extensive flight, but he was _close_ , so very close. By the Veretians’ arrival, he would be successful. The servant boy, as it turned out, was not there about the Regent, but rather his nephew. He requested Damen’s presence in the evening, for the first time. 

He’d be a dishonest man to say his heart didn’t speed up, but he made a point to consider before sending the boy back with an assenting answer. 

Laurent received him in his rooms with his balcony’s doors wide and his dark clothing in tightly laced Veretian style. 

They spoke about absolutely nothing of importance. That is to say: they spoke of grain tax, and the cut of Akielon armor and its pitfalls, and the Regent’s planned visit, and the kitchen’s lacking talent, and just as Damen opened his mouth to ask Laurent to cut to the chase (he hadn’t realized how much the conversation was akin to stalling until the Prince passed the news of his uncle as if it were nothing), the blond did. Damen’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline.

“You want to fly the tunnels?”

He glanced outside. While they spoke, the moon rose.

“Would that be a problem?”

Eyes shifted back to Laurent and a surprised guffaw escaped him.

“They’re a network for fishermen hauling goods and street urchins looking to prove their skill in the air. With the tide, half of it sits underwater.”

“Can’t you swim?”

“That really isn’t the point. Why do you want to dive through the tunnels?”

“I’m looking to prove my mettle.”

“You do have the mind of a pick-pocket.”

Laurent smiled, the smallest quick at the edge of his mouth. In the age-old quirk that now _had_ to be intentional given that Damen hadn’t seen it in months, his wings rose and settled, the feathers a quiet ruffle against his back. Finally: “You’ve noticed my uncle lining a few of your nobles’ pockets. Rumors have it a shipment containing more than an ornate bracelet will appear tonight; I doubt Straton or his wife would want to explain why they’re privately receiving personalized Veretian merchandise this close to my uncle’s arrival.”

It didn’t seem probable. In fact, it seemed like a trap. The tunnels really weren’t a place to stand: though children’s stories credited their creation to the first of the royal line as feats of strength, the first Queen carving rock as she hovered over crashing waves, any respectable person understood they were simply stories. As with most things to do with Laurent, it piqued Damen’s curiousity. Laurent stayed silent as he turned the idea over, recalling the meetings planned in the morning and the strict rule on the extent the captive prince was allowed off the palace’s grounds.

He’d only just regained his wings. Curving through darkened, narrow walls-- it would be a challenge.

The tunnels were as Damianos remembered from his boyhood, with two notable exceptions.

One exception opened his pretty mouth - his white wings at last free of grey down, his limbs lankier with the unavoidable consequence of ill-timed growth spurts, his chiton loose at one shoulder in a manner that looked too unintentional to be anything close - and scoffed. “I knew it. You _were_ fucking him.”

“Your Highness,” said the other, his nose angled oddly from a badly set break, a warning grip on the curly-haired man’s shoulder, dressed like a roughened mercenary but kept a smile too bright on his face, “you made it.”

Laurent ignored the - former - royal pet, though none of them could have missed the way his eyes lingered on the grown boy. His look wasn’t necessarily distasteful. “Proud though I’m sure King Damianos was of his palace guards, he may now be looking into hiring replacements. Jord? Would you be interested?”

“Ah-- my Akielon is- … not the best, Your Highness.”

“Pity. You’ve had a while to practice.”

Damianos shook himself out of surprise, wryly commenting from the back of the underground hovel, “I wouldn’t fault the patrols for not seeing us. You’ve had this planned since you arrived, hadn’t you?”

“Not that long.” A pause. Nicaise looked ready to say something sharp; but he also looked like he was ready to fight tooth and claw as soon as Damen made one wrong move, so perhaps his ire didn’t mean much. “... I hadn’t been certain they would make it.” He had a question, Damen could tell.

Nicaise apparently could, too. Pulling a small satchel from his side with a death glare toward Damianos, his shoulders back and chin up, “We were all _supposed_ to, but Aimeric fled like a rat. He’s the one that let the others know we were at Acquitart. We had to scramble out before the army arrived. Now, it’s only this stick-in-the-mud and me.”

Jord flinched. Laurent’s gaze snapped to him.

But then Nicaise’s defensiveness hiked up. He really was still a child, even if now he could support himself in the sky and stood past Damen’s chest. An old, weathered paper withdrawn, he brandished it toward Laurent with a nervousness the tension in his jaw couldn’t hide. The Prince didn’t expect for Nicaise to have anything - the shuttered look that dropped over his face as he took the scroll told Damen as much.

“Don’t worry. It’s not a renewal of my contract. You haven’t the funds to afford me, firstly, and I refuse to travel this much again, secondly. Akielos is too hot. I can feel my insides cooking. No wonder your slave’s soft in the head.”

Now it was Damianos’s turn to ignore the boy. Laurent never looked shocked-- _never._ And yet, the man had somehow grown even paler, his eyes trapped on the paper. “Laurent?”

Nicaise, apparently, hadn’t lost his touch for chattering whenever he could.

“I heard-- in the market place, I heard _he’ll_ be visiting soon.” Here, though, his voice dropped. He swallowed shallowly, one hand picking at his chiton’s hem. It slipped further down his arm. There was an anger in his voice, but uncertainty and caution, too. “I think. That might change how the visit goes.”

The night grew tension - a coiled spring without an outlet. At the boy’s side, Jord’s mouth was a thin line and shadows gathered between his eyes.

“Yes,” breathed Laurent, his gaze rising first to Nicaise, then Jord, and, finally, Damen. He held the paper close, like it might disappear if he so much as blinked. “It does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a lot I wanted to add to this verse- it feels more like a bare bones version of what it could be--, but crunch time's twisting my arm. so, I figured, better some than none.
> 
> That is to say: RL is a bit crunched so I know I won't be able to work on this again for a while yet - I do hope to expand (esp with Laurent and Damen's relationship, it just started being positive!) in the future, I just didn't want to leave this at one chapter and risk not getting even close to the finish. The end goal plan has Nicaise (who Laurent did contract) with the papers Paschal had in canon, though who knows when those actually changed hands.


End file.
